


Clues, Treasure, and Hope

by Mollygail



Category: White Collar
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, spoilers for series finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-22 14:34:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17664485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mollygail/pseuds/Mollygail
Summary: Peter follows Neal's clues and finds the storage container.Just a quick little one-shot.





	Clues, Treasure, and Hope

A year. For an entire year he had mourned for his friend. Peter replaced the lock then turned and leaned against the storage container. What was he supposed to do now? Why had Neal left the clues? Peter shook his head and slowly rubbed the back of his neck. He couldn’t deal with all of this right now. Right now he just wanted to focus on one thing….Neal was alive. He needed to get home to Elizabeth and little Neal. He needed to share the news with someone.

“Hi, Hon.” Elizabeth looked up from her computer when Peter walked in. “Oh, you look like you had a really rough day.”

Peter took off his coat and flopped down on the couch next to his wife. “Yeah. It was an eventful day.” He paused, deep in thought, while El patiently waited for him to continue. “El, I think Neal is alive.”

Elizabeth had a quick flashback to the days just after Neal died. Mozzie tried several times to convince her Neal had faked his death. He’d carried on about John Kennedy, the moon landing, Roswell, and Neal Caffrey’s greatest con. She’d finally snapped at him with tears in her eyes and she hadn’t seen him for months. 

Elizabeth put aside her laptop and repositioned herself on the couch so that she was facing Peter. She took a calming breath and slowly let it out. “Peter, he’s dead. You identified his body. You told me he was in a body bag in the morgue. Cold and lifeless. If there has been some amazing crime committed by a brilliant criminal then it’s a new brilliant criminal. It’s not Neal.”

“No, El, it’s not a new criminal. It’s Neal. He left clues. After Mozzie’s visit last night and the bottle of wine that was delivered I started thinking about it. Look, I know it sounds crazy, but give me a chance to explain.” 

“Ok, explain it to me.” El was near tears and afraid of what he would say. She was afraid it wasn’t true and yet afraid it might be true. 

“Well, let’s start with the bottle of Bordeaux. The same as the empty wine bottle that Kate left for Neal to find when she left him. That bottle was a clue and so was this one. I started looking through my ‘Caffrey box’ and found more clues. There were some surveillance photos taken that week before Neal was killed that showed him giving money to a woman. I think it was the EMT who took care of him when he got shot. We thought he might have rented a storage unit that last week and I found a key in the bag of belongings that they gave me when he died. There were also several IDs in the bag.”

“But, Hon”, El interrupted, “None of that is a sign that he’s alive. That’s just typical Neal stuff.”

“There’s more. A lot more. I remember a conversation Neal and I had in the van late one night. He was talking about prison.” El’s eyebrows rose; she’d never heard Neal say much about prison. “He was telling me about the safest, least violent time of the day being when Days of Our Lives was on. He said soap operas were like a drug that most of the guys were addicted to. That led to a conversation about all of the characters who had come back from the dead on soap operas. I looked at the IDs he had on him when he died. There was Roman Brady, Stefano DiMera, and John Black. I did a quick internet search and all those names are characters who came back from the dead on Days of Our Lives. So, those IDs were enough evidence for me to want to know what the key was for. I tracked down the storage unit and opened it up. El, it’s full of stolen art and artifacts that Caffrey was suspected of stealing.”

“But that doesn’t mean he’s alive. You just found his cache. That’s good. You can return all of it to its owners.” El rubbed her hand on Peter’s arm in a comforting gesture. He could see pity in her eyes.

“That’s not all that was in the container, El. There were also posters diagraming the effects of tetrodotoxin. The posters were for me, to show me how he faked his death. There was a French newspaper too that had an article about the security system at the Louvre.”

“Peter, you don’t read French so how do you know what the newspaper said?”

“It was an English-language French newspaper. El, I know it sounds crazy but I know he did this. He faked his death and I think Mozzie knows. I don’t think he knew when it happened, but he knows now.”

“Ok, if this is true, if Neal’s alive, why did he do it. He had a contract and would have been free anyway.”

“I think he did it to protect us from the revenge of the Pink Panthers. He faked his death to protect us.”

The tears finally fell from Elizabeth’s eyes as she realized the sacrifice Neal had made for them. “You’re not going to look for him, are you?”

“No. I’ll somehow figure out how to return the stuff I found but that’s all I’m going to do. He earned his freedom. He deserves to make a new life for himself.”

El leaned over and hugged Peter and then relaxed with her head on his shoulder. She could imagine Neal living happily in Paris.

**************************************

Peter went to work the next morning feeling more light-hearted than he’d felt in a long time. The feeling didn’t last long.

Jones greeted him as he came through the office doors. “Peter, we’ve got a new case. You’re going to love this one.” Jones handed Peter a file. It was obviously a very new case judging by the thinness of the file.

“What is it, Jones?” Peter continued to walk to his office as they talked.

“We got an anonymous tip. The caller reported a storage container full of stolen goods, art and antiquities. The caller referred to it as a ‘treasure trove’”.

Peter’s heart sank. He had wanted to take time and figure out how to return the stuff in the container without implicating Neal. Even if the world thought Neal was dead Peter didn’t want to tarnish Neal’s memory by revealing the fact that Neal’s alleged crimes were, in fact, not just alleged.

Peter opened the file folder with trepidation and read what little information it contained.

Time the tip was received: 9:00 pm. (That was just hours after he had discovered the container for himself.)

The location of the container was the same as the one he’d found.

The storage container was registered in the name of Mateo Keeler. 

“Mateo Keeler? Do we know anything about this guy?” Peter had known Neal probably had more aliases than the FBI knew of but this didn’t sound like Neal’s usual style. 

“We know a lot about the guy. Keeler is one of Matthew Keller’s aliases. It seems he rented this container about the same time that we saw Neal in that area. Maybe Neal followed him there? Anyway, Keller set up an account so the monthly fee would be paid automatically. I’ve got an evidence recovery team ready to go. From the sound of it, there’s a lot of stuff to log into evidence. It might take all day. You want to come with?”

“Sure. Let’s go.” Peter was still a bit nervous. What he’d found yesterday would be enough to incriminate Neal and put him away for the rest of his life if anyone found out he was alive. But surely Neal had this covered. Someone must have been watching the container and waited until Peter discovered it before calling in the tip. 

Peter was standing next to Jones as the lock was cut and the doors were swung open. They stepped inside shining their flashlights over the stacks of paintings, furniture, and artifacts. Peter walked toward the back of the container where just yesterday he had seen the posters that revealed the secret of Neal Caffrey’s greatest con. The posters were gone as was the mannequin and Mozzie’s Queen of hearts. When Peter turned to face Jones he was smiling with delight and relief. 

A few members of the evidence team were already starting to dust for fingerprints while others were taking photos of everything. Peter and Jones both walked out of the container to get out of the way. 

“Peter?”

“Yeah, Jones?” 

“I was kinda worried when we first got the tip that this might be Caffrey’s stuff. I know he’s dead, but I still would have hated to find evidence of his crimes. Is that weird?”

“No, I know what you mean. I like to think we made a difference in his life and that if he had lived he’d have gone straight.” Peter hesitated before continuing. “You know, just looking around in there I think some of that stuff was rumored to have been stolen by Neal. Maybe all those years Keller was trying to frame Neal.” Peter felt a little guilty at trying to mislead Jones but not enough to stop himself. 

“Once we get all of this cataloged and return it to its rightful owners we can officially close a lot of cases and clear Neal’s name of a lot of crimes. He would have loved that.” Jones had a gut feeling that there was more to this than met the eye. Peter had been nervous before they opened the container and then went directly to the back as though he knew his way around. It was as though Peter was still trying to protect Neal a year after his death. 

“Yeah, Neal would have loved this. In fact, this is so perfect that it’s almost like Neal is getting revenge from beyond the grave.” 

“Perfect. Almost too perfect.” Jones couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something strange about this case.

Their conversation was interrupted by an ERT agent. “Sirs, we found a detailed manifest. It lists every item and where it was stolen from. We also found prints on several items and the digital scanner confirms a match to Matthew Keller.”

Peter smiled at the young agent. “Good work, Davis. How long will it take to process all of this?” 

“We should be able to get it done by the end of the day. The manifest will help.” Peter nodded and Agent Davis left to get back to work.

“It’s a good day, Jones; enjoy it. We found a treasure; we know who stole it; we get to make a lot of people happy by returning it. Come on, let’s go get some good coffee. We can go to that place that has the cronuts.”

As they walked to the car Peter’s head was filled with thoughts of Paris. Maybe it was time for a vacation.

**Author's Note:**

> I've always thought that Peter would not be able to just walk away from the storage container. He would have to make sure that the stolen property was returned. But what about the evidence that Neal left of his faked death? Peter wouldn't be able to destroy evidence with a clear conscience. In my mind, Neal would have taken care of the dilemma for him. And Keller was dead so framing him for the thefts wouldn't hurt anyone.


End file.
